civ 1- food supply

[muhajules]

hi..
i've ver 4. only a beginner and i usually pay with chieftain!!
how do i increase the food storage. i irrigate the surrounding ares, build granary and aquaducts. but something more needs to be done?
i spied on my enemy and he has lots of food. i've just two or three rows!
and how can u do fishing?

help pls!

 

[Gowron]

In the city managament window, you can choose which tiles are currently being harvested. The food of all these tiles is summed up and divided between maintenance (each citizen [the faces, not the "100.000" or whatever number] needs 2 food units per turn, and each settler that is supported from this city also needs 1-2 food units per turn, depending on the government).

The excess food is added to the food storage of the city after each turn. When the storage is full, your city grows by one, and the storage becomes empty again (or half empty if you have a granary, but granaries are usually just a waste of time and resources).

If your government is despotism (or anarchy, but that is not a "real" government type), then each square that would normally produce 3 or 4 food units per turn will produce one food unit less than it normally would. To change this, have a revolution and switch to a different government (preferably Republic). Then your cities can grow faster

Once you have discovered Railroad, you can furthermore increase the food production of squares by building railroads (this will only increase food production if the square produces at least 2 food units so far).

To harvest the fish, simply select it in the city managemant window. No further action needed

 

[Diviner]

yeah avoid despotism at all costs. tile improvements have reduced effect in that government, so there is not really much point in great terraforming under despotism (unless if you want to avoid the thing i descript in the next paragraph), but very good for an early game expansion and warfare of course

republic also demands the settler to be supported with 2 food. so do not mass product them to boost terraform, because the effect will be painfully slow growth. but little terraforming in the unit supporting despotism then change to either monarchy or republic (both is easily achieveable) makes sense sometimes.

go for special resources for even more food. if you find the browny game, plant forest on that tile, the production of that tile will be great. oasises in the desert give even greater food production if irrigated and railroaded.

 

[Ifrit9]

Don't build many Settlers in one city, each of them consumes 1 food per turn.

 

[Whelkman]

Don't build many Settlers in one city, each of them consumes 1 food per turn.

Or two with Monarchy or higher.

Gowron is right about granaries. Early in the game you'll want smaller cities due to population discontent in larger cities, and granaries work against that while costing you money. If/When you desire larger cities later in the game, there's a far more efficient method of growth revolving around manipulating population happiness.

 

[Alex Johnson]

I also find that if population is my goal, it is easiest to found a tiny new town and every time it grows to size 2, build a settler who goes over to your big city and (j)oins it. The cost of a size 1 town to grow to size 2 is 10 food, while the cost of a size 15 city to grow to size 16 is, what, 100? But you can make that size 15 grow to size 16 in about 5 turns if you use a new town with irrigated, railroaded grasslands. Faster if you have a food bonus of some kind.

 

[Ifrit9]

Gowron is right about granaries. Early in the game you'll want smaller cities due to population discontent in larger cities, and granaries work against that while costing you money. If/When you desire larger cities later in the game, there's a far more efficient method of growth revolving around manipulating population happiness.

Granaries are useful if you use the expansion strategy, they allow you to build new cities much faster.

 

[Whelkman]

Granaries are useful if you use the expansion strategy, they allow you to build new cities much faster.

Settlers are the key to city growth, and We Love the President Day trumps Granaries about twenty fold in expanding population.

 

[Acadien]

Alex,

You can migrate peaple from one city to the next using settlers? Woah! I knew civ if full of supprises but I didn't not know that at all! Settlers can join in cities?

Wow, can't wait to go try that strategy, as I am one who favors civ developpement over war. So much so that I always do my best so that no genocide (extinction of a civ) takes place in my games.

 

[Whelkman]

Stacking settlers onto cities doesn't work past level 10.

 

[Alex Johnson]

Whelkman is right. I forgot that little limitation. But settler factories with irrigated railroaded space can get all your new cities up to size 10 very quickly. Then build your aqueduct and grainary and go with the WLTK Day.

Personally I prefer war, but I played one population game and this was helpful. Take an enemy city, rush build temple and cathedral and have another town dump people on it fast. In Communism this makes for a productive city quickly since corruption is not based on distance from your capital. Size 10 is going to pump out a tank or rifleman in a few turns to continue your war.

 

[Gowron]

Granaries are useful if you use the expansion strategy, they allow you to build new cities much faster.

Nope, building granaries will just slow you down.

There are 2 ways to expand effectively: horizontal growth (aka ICS) and vertical growth. In the former case, you'll hardly build any improvements anyway. And in the latter case, cities with a size of 3 or more will definitely grow by rapture and nothing else, and no granary is needed for that; in addition, unless you rush-buy the granary, it probably won't be finished before the city grows to a size of 2, and therefore the granary won't have an effect before the city grows to a size of 3. Thus, buildings a granary won't affect city growth at all.

 

[Whelkman]

Nope, building granaries will just slow you down.

There are 2 ways to expand effectively: horizontal growth (aka ICS) and vertical growth. In the former case, you'll hardly build any improvements anyway.

I achieve 126-127 cities in about as many turns, and the first structures I build are Mfg. Plants and some wonders to keep the construction list from permanently overflowing. Granaries have no place in my cities until the end where I use them to keep cities with uneven food at an average of 50% supply thereby increasing the time they spend in the larger state. I don't know if this plan works out to any significant degree, but it's not expensive, either.

Mass building requires nothing more than a bunch of level 2 cities. In fact, creating Settlers from larger cities is inefficient due to the increased time it takes the city to bounce back to a larger level. Settlers shouldn't be much of a drain because they should be founding towns immediately after their creation.

 

[Ifrit9]

Nope, building granaries will just slow you down.

There are 2 ways to expand effectively: horizontal growth (aka ICS) and vertical growth. In the former case, you'll hardly build any improvements anyway.

Why not? I don't use those "Mongol rush" strategies. In most cases Granaries are useful while colonizing your first continent (the faster you'll do it the sooner you'll win). If there's a good production square near a city (forest etc.) it will be able to build Settlers much quicker than it grows. Granary is necessary in such situation. Even if city grows as fast as it builds Settlers Granary is still useful 'cause it keeps city at size 2-4 (sometimes even higher), not always 1-2. So Granaries can make your cities develop already during the initial expansion stage.

 

[Acadien]

Whelkman,

Holly cow, I don't know how you can play with over 120 cities... Is this with a civ developpment (space conquestion) or a world domination agenda (destroying all other civ's) ?

 

[Whelkman]

If there's a good production square near a city (forest etc.) it will be able to build Settlers much quicker than it grows.

It just doesn't work out. Gowron, I'm sure, has analyzed it mathematically, and I've worked it out empirically. Granaries are useless if your true goal is to build cities as rapidly as possible. This wouldn't be true were Granaries cheaper, but you're passing over a far more valuable Settler by building one. Compounding their lack of worth is the scarcity of terraformed tiles in early civilizations. Big cities aren't worth as much as as several small cities when each small city has a processed home tile while the large city receives mediocre returns from untouched expansion tiles. You're forced to pay a buck a turn to maintain the things, which can quickly become irritating in a large civilization; those $50 hut bonuses which seem so significant to small early civilizations wouldn't last half a turn in mine, even in 1500BC. Finally, if you're developing cities as quickly as possible, you can't efficiently handle the ramp in unhappiness when accelerating growth by 50%, assuming you even have the terraforming Settler base to maintain the additional growth that makes Granaries so seemingly lucrative in the first place. The best approach is to control growth until your civilization is ready for spamming "We Love the President Day". Ten turns of this beats one hundred or more of Granary-based growth.

Don't take our word for it. Using your Granary strategy, meet or beat these milestones:

• 50 turns: 27 cities
• 100 turns: 53 cities
• 125 turns (approx): 120 cities

 

[Whelkman]

Holly cow, I don't know how you can play with over 120 cities... Is this with a civ developpment (space conquestion) or a world domination agenda (destroying all other civ's) ?

I would say managing 127 cities is not as difficult as it sounds, but I'm probably less than impartial due to my playing games of this type for over a decade. Not only do I strive for the most cities as early as possible, every game I attempt to build the perfect civilization where every single action is the best one I can take, though this can make things tedious at times and lead to 8-10 hour turns. I'm currently burned out, but I usually pick up games in progress every few months.

One of my tricks is to make every city do the same thing as much as possible. For example, eliminating the military aspect for simplicity, the first goal is to cover the map with my cities. Therefore, nearly every city will be developing a Settler. Existing Settlers will either immediately form new cities or create paths to new city locations. This process is interrupted due to sidetracking to build cheap wonders (because of a bug in the construction list) and Mfg. Plants, but every city is still doing essentially the same thing. Cities with Mfg. Plants generate Caravans to cover cities without Mfg. Plants. Then come Marketplaces to fuel further growth via taxes and luxuries. Then Aqueducts, Cathedrals, Banks, and so on. This approach both simplifies matters and brings overall efficiency due to every city being simultaneously prepared for the next development stage. Cities that grow "too fast" are penalized with as many associated Settlers as it takes before they stop growing.

As for goals, I can conquer twelve civilizations in 60ish turns or land on Alpha Centauri in less than 150, I think. Though space conquest is what ends the game, the launch is calculated so that the game ends exactly one turn before I'm out of time. Prior to that I'm stockpiling as many Future Techs as humanly possible. 1458 is my highest, but I believe I can reach farther.

 

[Acadien]

Whelkman,

Wow, that is amazingly compulsive! In my games, I don't remember having more than 30 cities (under twenty most of the time). My games are more like role playing, where I contemplate how things develop in my civ as much as for the computer controlled civs. I aim to be ahead of them without destroying them (sure, I capture some of their cities when they force me into wars but usually end the war as soon as I have an opportunity). It's a game of piblomacy, and making the best one can with available land, even if it means building cities with ovelapping territories, even with the enemy. My civ almost always has a fragmented, compact geography. Now that I think of it, my games a pretty much aimless?

Anyways, I'll be sure to try some of the ideas that are in this thread!

 

[Gowron]

Gowron, I'm sure, has analyzed it mathematically

Not this time

Actually I was playing Freeciv online some years ago. In Freeciv you either understand how worthless most city improvements are, or you build them and someone else will sell them later

Freeciv is basically Civ2, but the general principles of expansion carry over to Civ1 as well. Of course, one difference is that you can have 128+ cities. In fact, having 100+ cities was quite "normal" in Freeciv (ICS ftw), but with a turn time limit of 2-4 minutes ^^ (minus lag!)

 

[Whelkman]

In Freeciv you either understand how worthless most city improvements are, or you build them and someone else will sell them later

You mean improvements are useless other than SDI Defense and Hydro Plant!

My favorite aspect of Freeciv is the detachable, sortable list data. Do I wish civ1 had that.